


The Lion Hunts Alone

by luna_plath



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ASOS Spoilers, Cross-Generation Relationship, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, Het, One Shot, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU.  For ozmamohglacius’s prompt, “Tyrion watches Tywin and Arya's strange courtship from the shadows with strange, confused, curious, and fascinated horror.”  Arya is captured in the Riverlands and brought back to King’s Landing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lion Hunts Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ozma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozma/gifts).



> In this fic Arya and Sansa are older than in canon. “The Rains of Castamere” is definitely not mine.

It was hot on the day they brought her back to King’s Landing.

She had hoped to never see the city again—the Blackwater, the City Watch, the royal standard—it all made her roil with anger. Ages ago, she’d thought that if she could only ride a horse again or find her wolf, she’d be happy. It made no matter that she was seated on a horse now. Lannister guards were mounted all around her and Nymeria was chained and caged. The horses pulling the direwolf’s cart had to constantly be calmed and the Westermen traveling with their party were terrified to go too near her.

_Smart of them_ , Arya thought, uncomfortable in the lady’s gown she’d been forced to wear. She’d spent her time since escaping the capital in ragged boys clothes, a far cry from the blue silk dress she’d been given in Maidenpool. Lord Tarly had been firm that the Hand of the King would be very displeased if a highborn captive arrived in King’s Landing dressed as a peasant boy, so he’d found her clothes and ladies to wash and dress her. Arya would have preferred her boy clothes, but she wasn’t to have them or the bow and arrow she’d stolen from a poorly guarded encampment.

The Gold Cloaks were expecting them, from what Arya could tell. Lord Randyll must have sent a raven to the capital, because when the City Watch saw their banners and the caged direwolf that traveled with their party they were quickly ushered through the city gates.

The Red Keep looked over the city from Aegon’s Hill, visible above the rooftops of King’s Landing. Arya felt her nails dig into her palms, her body wrought with tension as they rode through the city. _Here I am,_ she thought, imprisoned again.

\--

“What do you plan to do with Arya Stark?” Tyrion asked.

He was seated before the fire in the Tower of the Hand, the very quarters he’d enjoyed during his father’s absence. Cersei had just arrived and they had all been served a goblet of Dornish wine, but the drink did little to distract Tyrion. Everyone in King’s Landing had heard the racket from Arya Stark’s howling direwolf; the smallfolk had thought the Northern army upon the city gates.

“We must arrange a match for her,” his father said.

Cersei’s eyebrows rose at that. “To whom? Certainly not Tommen, I won’t have him around that wild northern girl. And that wolf of hers must be put down. It attacked Joffery. I won’t allow it to harm him again.”

Tywin looked up from his writing table, his cool green eyes unreadable, but Tyrion could tell that his father was none too pleased.

“That wolf is our proof, Cersei. Undoubtedly, Robb Stark will try to say that we have an imposter, but only the real Arya Stark would have a direwolf in her company. The wolf lives.”

The words were delivered with steely resolution, as if he were humoring her with the pretense of a discussion. Tyrion was content to witness the discord between his sister and his father when so often he was the object of Lord Tywin’s displeasure, but Cersei was interrupted before she could further the argument. 

Arya entered the chamber followed by Ser Osmond. The knight inclined his head and saw himself out. Lord Tywin stood, though if it were a display of true manners or intimidation Tyrion could not say.

“Lady Stark, I’m glad you could join us.”

Arya purposefully crossed the room and sat by Tyrion, as far away from Cersei as possible. She did not provide any greeting or courtesy, unlike Sansa, who would have been unfailingly polite even if she heartedly despised them all. Arya seemed less skilled in hiding her contempt.

Behind the desk, with the light from the fire catching his features, Lord Tywin looked imposing and fierce enough to sober the most stubborn of children. 

_But she’s not a child, no more than Sansa is_ , Tyrion thought.

“Now, Lady Arya, I think we would all be highly interested to know how you escaped the capital, and why you were found so far from King’s Landing with a stolen horse and weapons,” Tywin asked.

Instead of answering him, Arya remained silent, watching his father with those impassable gray eyes of hers. Looking at her was like confronting Eddard Stark’s ghost.

After several moments of silence, his father asked, “Have bandits stolen your tongue, girl? Or did Ned Stark not teach you to speak properly?”

“I can speak, _my Lord_ ,” she said, bolder in those five words than most highborn girls would ever dare to be. “I simply do not wish to tell you.”

“Insolence,” said Cersei, already rising from her seat, but their father silenced her with a raised hand.

“Pardon my curiosity, but you hid yourself quite well, my lady. For many moons we thought you dead. I’m sure you’ll share the riveting tale with us at a later time, when you’re feeling more rested. I only wished to welcome you to the Red Keep. We are now family, after all.”

Her expression turned dark, as if the word “family” were a curse. “Is that all, my Lord?”

His father nodded. “You may go.”

Arya took her leave without any further comment. She was taller than Sansa, and her hair was pulled into a simple braid, much like the styles Tyrion had seen in the North. If he hadn’t known that she and his Lady wife were sisters, he never would have thought them related.

As soon as Arya was out of the room, Cersei said, “She will have to be dealt with. I don’t understand how you can allow that girl to speak to you in such a way.”

His father took a sip from his wine goblet, which had remained untouched until now. “I will handle her, Cersei. Concern yourself with the king. His marriage is upcoming and it’s imperative that Joffery is appropriate in his behavior around Lady Margaery, otherwise our alliance with Highgarden could be jeopardized. There will be many changes after the wedding. I need the both of you to act accordingly.”

Tyrion knew what his father meant by “act accordingly.” Lord Tywin had been firm with him on the issue of Sansa, and now that there was Arya to deal with the pressure to bed his wife would surely increase. He could only speculate what his father was planning after Joffery and Margaery’s wedding, but whatever it was seemed to be occupying him to an unusual degree.

He and Cersei were shortly dismissed, leaving his Lord father to his plotting and his papers.

\--

“We must escape this place,” Sansa whispered. 

They were in the Godswood within the Red Keep, accompanied by Nymeria and two Lannister guardsmen who followed the direwolf’s pacing with frightened eyes.

Arya picked up a stick and fell into the stance of a Water Dancer. “It will be impossible without help.”

She balanced on the tips of her feet, her sword held lightly in her hand as a cool breeze lapped over her skin. Despite the beauty of the Godswood, Arya couldn’t think of a more hideous place than the capital. She fought an invisible opponent with her stick, slashing at the air as she thought on Sansa’s words.

“They’ll marry you to someone, like they’ve done to me,” Sansa said.

Arya frowned, abandoning her swordplay. “It’ll probably be Tommen, if Joffery’s marrying Margaery Tyrell.”

“Better Tommen than some other Lannister. At least he’s kind.”

The way Sansa spoke made her flush with anger. Once she’d arrived in King’s Landing it hadn’t taken long for the rumors of Sansa’s treatment by Joffery to reach Arya. The thought of her sister being beaten by that cowardly excuse for a boy King, only to be forced to wed his uncle, made Arya’s hands itch for her sword.

Nymeria stalked over to them, obviously unhappy. Arya could think of no way to quiet her wolf with so much anger in her heart.

“Even if I’m forced to wed, that doesn’t mean they win,” she said, thought a quiet voice in the back of her head disagreed.

_Doesn’t it?_ she wondered. _What else is left, once they’ve taken my true name?_

Nymeria bent her head back and howled, loud enough to wake all seven kingdoms, fierce and mournful all at once. Arya limply dropped her stick. There would be battles to fight, but they wouldn’t be won with arrows or fists or swords, of that much she was certain.

\----

Her time in King’s Landing dragged onward, and every day Arya entertained herself with increasingly wild dreams of escape. 

She imagined dressing herself as a servant and leaving the castle under the pretense of running some errand. More than once she had considered escaping through the sewers into the Blackwater. On her more wistful days she dreamed of fighting her way out of the castle with Needle, but the sword had been lost to her long ago in the Riverlands, a casualty of her time in Harrenhall. Some of her fantasies contained a glimmer of possibility, but mostly she drew strength from them, from imagining her freedom. 

Arya knew what men looked like when they had abandoned hope. _They’ll never take it from me,_ she thought. _I won’t give it to them._

\----

After a moon’s turn she began to find parcels in her bedchamber. Arya could think of no one who would send her a gift, but they contained no note, no signature. She tore open the first package, impatient with the mystery until she found a gown finer than any garment she’d ever owned.

The fabric wasn’t gray, truly, but silver and smoother than glass. For a moment she wondered if she had entered the wrong chambers, for this gift could not have been intended for her. She put it in the bottom of her wardrobe without trying it on.

Arya made no mention of the dress to Sansa or anyone else, nor did she wear it about the castle. Several days later she was greeted with a knock on her door from two of Queen Cersei’s handmaidens, along with a note from Lord Tywin.

_You will join me for dinner this evening. Don’t forget your courtesies when you arrive._.

It made Arya scowl but she didn’t have time to contest the missive. The women had drawn a bath for her, removing her gown and shift while they scattered fresh flower petals in the water. Her mother used to bathe with stalks of lavender and shredded mint leaves, and the thought made Arya’s heart sink sharply. The handmaidens washed her hair and rubbed sweet smelling oils into her skin, then dried her with downy cloths before dressing her in the silvery gown, adding a strand of opals and a pair of Lady’s slippers.

They tried to pin her hair in one of the Southern styles that were so popular at court but Arya wouldn’t allow it. She had it pulled into a Northern braid before Ser Loras arrived to escort her to the Tower of the Hand.

He stood in the corridor outside her chambers, his armor impeccably polished. Arya was surprised that only one man was guarding her, Kingsguard or not.

“You look very lovely, my Lady,” said Ser Loras, as if he were surprised at her appearance.

“Thank you, Ser,” she said.

They walked in relative silence until they reached the tower proper. Ser Loras tried to wish her a good evening, but Arya had no desire to make polite conversation with the Knight of Flowers when she was being summoned to the lion’s den.

Lord Tywin was waiting for her on the terrace, his form a clean line in tailored burgundy and gold brocade. His eyes were sharp and unblinking. Cat’s eyes.

“Lady Arya.”

“My Lord.”

He walked toward her, paying close attention to her appearance, his gaze so purposeful as to be harsh. After many long moments his expression shifted to one of certainly.

“I intend to make you the Lady of Casterly Rock.”

\--

Arya knew the future was well and truly changed when she was later summoned to dine with Tyrion Lannister. She left her hair down and took Nymeria with her, certain that a dwarf would be no match for a direwolf.

Sansa was not present for their meeting, to her surprise, and Tyrion was unusually cordial when she arrived.

“I am one of the few people aware of my father’s plan to wed you,” he started, ignoring the platter of fruit and cheese laid before them.

She was thrown off by his directness, but Arya had met countless liars, thieves, and conmen in the Riverlands, and Lord Tyrion was not the most impressive among them.

He took her silence as understanding, not waiting overly long before speaking again.

“My marriage to your sister is purely political. We are not truly man and wife, if you understand my meaning, but I fear you will not be so lucky.”

“Jaime is in the Kingsguard and can inherent no lands or titles. Her charming personality notwithstanding, Cersei is a woman, and not capable enough to govern her children, let alone the west, and my father will choose an early grave before he will leave the Rock to me,” he said, swirling the wine in his goblet, not taking a sip.

“He needs me for an heir,” Arya said.

“Do you understand the position that puts you in, my Lady?”

Arya looked at his scarred face and mismatched eyes without flinching. Iciness crept through her form, hardening every happy memory of Winterfell—of her mother’s voice, of Bran and Rickon’s laughter, of her father’s strength when he would pick her up and place her on his shoulders. She had no room for family or happiness or joy any longer. She had to be unyielding, frozen and unmovable like the Wall, like the stone King’s of Winter.

“I am a prisoner, Lord Tyrion. That is my position.”

He looked into his wine cup for a long moment, his mouth parted like he was about to say something. Tyrion quickly downed half his goblet instead.

Arya’s hand was on a hair’s breath from the door when he quipped, “Welcome to the family, my Lady.”

\--

The date of Joffery and Margaery’s wedding arrived and Arya found herself in the Sept of Baelor for the ceremony. She wore a gown of dark blue and the opals Lord Tywin had given her, but the compliments she received on her appearance sounded dull and false in her ears. After the High Septon pronounced Margaery a Baratheon for a second time the royal family and their guests departed for the feast.

Arya was seated next to her sister, but that small comfort did little to assuage her. As servants carried out the seventy-seven courses she heard the musicians begin a new tune.

_And who are you, the proud lord said,_

_that I must bow so low?_

She tightly grasped her dagger while leaving her food untouched, her knuckles white from the force of it, watching Joffery smugly call for more wine while Margaery Tyrell sat prettily by his side.

_Only a cat of a different coat,_

_that's all the truth I know_

Tyrion had made it blatantly clear that she was to be Lord Tywin’s wife for true. Arya would always be a Stark, no matter whom they married her to or how many children they made her have, of that much she was certain. And perhaps those children would have something of her in them as well. The Lannisters had taken her family, her home, and now her name, but Arya refused to surrender herself.

_In a coat of gold or a coat of red,_

_a lion still has claws,_

_And mine are long and sharp, my lord,_

_as long and sharp as yours._

Lord Tywin called for a toast to the King and Lady Margaery, standing from his place beside Mace Tyrell.

“May we drink to the happiness of His Grace and his new bride, to the joining of two noble houses, and to the union of others,” he said, holding his hand out to Arya.

She took Tywin’s hand and rose from her seat, feeling nothing but emptiness in the place where her heart was supposed to be. The court was divided between drunken cheers for King Joffery and more astute whispers as Arya was led to a seat beside the Hand of the King.

The singers picked up their verse just as the next course was brought forward, sending the cavernous Throne Room into a swirl of different tones. Arya could barely make out the end to the song.

_And so he spoke, and so he spoke,_

_that lord of Castamere,_

_But now the rains weep o'er his hall,_

_with no one there to hear._

\--


End file.
